The build up to the upcoming Terminator Genisys has been troubling for some fans. We know it tinkers with the continuity of the franchise, and while some bits we’ve seen in trailers are promising, others have made fans grind their teeth. This new Japanese TV spot for the film, however, looks pretty badass.
We know that, in the course of rewriting history, Genisys plans to revisit key moments from the franchise, and one of those scenes is front and center in this video. In James Cameron’s 1984 original, when Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 appears in the past, buck ass nude, the first thing he does is tear apart a group of teen punks (including a young Bill Paxton) and steal their clothes. The first thing we see in this TV spot is a tweaked version of this, where old Arnold shows up to take out the younger incarnation of himself. The ensuing Schwarzenegger vs. Schwarzenegger brawl is something we’ve been waiting to get a look at, and promises to be but one of the familiar scenes that the movie revisits with different results.
Between the editing, the throbbing techno score, and the action, which takes center stage here, there’s a serious tension to this video that some of the other previews have lacked. We also get a lot more of that new villainous John Connor hybrid that, as he says, is not exactly a machine, but not really a man. At this stage, we have little to no idea precisely what he is, and that’s one of biggest questions we have going into this movie.
In Genisys, the timeline has been thrown into all kinds of chaos due to repeated attempts by Skynet to go back in time and take out Sarah Connor, played in this incarnation by Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke. When this Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is sent back by this John Connor (Jason Clarke), what he finds is not what he expected. Instead of a meek, anonymous waitress we met in 1984, Sarah is already a hardened badass, having been raised in the rewritten timeline by a version of Schwarzenegger’s T-800, who she reportedly calls pops.
However it rewrites the timeline, Genisys is reportedly the beginning of a new Terminator trilogy. We imagine that if this film totally tanks, the studio could decide not to move forward, but odds are this will make money. The next two installments will reportedly shoot back-to-back and they are tentatively penciled in for May 19, 2017 and June 29, 2018 releases, respectively. They want to get these out quick since the rights revert back to James Cameron in 2019.
For good or ill, Terminator: Genisys hits theaters everywhere July 1. Let us know if you’re excited about this in the comments below.
